


and the years melt into each other, leaving you behind.

by gothgirlwinter



Category: DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Childhood Memories, Jealousy, M/M, Pining, Recreational Drug Use, Relationship Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-16 13:48:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28832193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gothgirlwinter/pseuds/gothgirlwinter
Summary: It took Roy too long to realize, but then he supposed he always knew.
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Koriand'r, Dick Grayson/Roy Harper, Roy Harper/Donna Troy
Comments: 8
Kudos: 48





	and the years melt into each other, leaving you behind.

**Author's Note:**

> a short and rather pointless character/relationship study.
> 
> please enjoy.

Roy leaned back against the wall and stared at his shoelaces.

He was really, really fucking high. The type of high where all time slowed down within your own personal bubble but sped right up outside of it. Each breath in his world seemed to account for five minutes outside of it. People came and went in the time it took him to even process that they had walked in the door.

A lock of his hair fell in front of his eye, brushing against his cheek. It was getting long. It felt funny – almost unnatural, like it wasn’t his at all. Who was he? He could feel every single strand, he could count them, if he could be bothered. He lifted a hand to his face and plucked the lock off his cheek, holding it between his thumb and finger, just in front of his eye. He’d had short hair, last he could remember. When did it get so long?

Something bumped his shoulder and he let go of the lock. There was a girl sitting next to him, his age or maybe younger (but she really shouldn’t have been). Face caked in make-up, the layers of which seemed – offset, somehow. Her lipstick didn’t line up with her lips, the colour of her eyebrows seemed to swell beyond the hair itself, the shadows of her eyes seemed to melt down her cheeks, her skin seemed covered in a thick film that he could pinch and peel off if he just tried. Her eyes were red, very red, but he couldn’t tell if it was from the weed or if she had been crying. Her mouth was moving – oh, she was talking to _him,_ he realized with a jolt as her words managed to pierce through the roar of the room around them and the warm, thick fog that had settled over his brain.

“-m-my ex-boyfriend always said I was but I never believed him!” She punctuated her sentence with a sob, body folding around the knees that were pulled to her chest. Roy gave a dumb nod. She looked up at him from over her shiny-damp kneecaps. All of a sudden, she began to laugh, body shaking with what could have easily been either crying or giggling, snorting through her snot-filled nose. “I’m in love with my best friend. Can you b-believe that? It’s so fff-ucking stupid! Like a fucking movie!” She hiccupped.

Roy nodded again. As he did so, his eyes drifted away from her face and out to the room in front of them. There were so many people – as one moved, they quickly seemed to be replaced by another, thrashing their bodies around, limbs flying every which way, faces leaning in close to one another in an effort to find some sort of connection. His eyes couldn’t follow their faces. They were talking, laughing, crying, yelling, fighting, but their mouths moved voicelessly. Nothing said could be heard over the music, which was so loud and generic and meaningless, it had all blended into one chunk of white noise that deafened his ears and drowned out everything else. Except for this girl, mid-meltdown, clinging onto his arm.

“Same,” he murmured, without thinking. The words, which he had never really thought to say before, not even to himself, walked themselves out of his mouth. Then his brain caught up.

Oh.

Well.

He supposed he was, wasn’t he?

“You-you are?” She raised her head to look at him, eyes dissolving into the rest of her face, which had begun to pool at the tip of her chin and drip down her neck.

Roy didn’t say anything. His eyes settled on his laces again. He didn’t need to; she let out a loud cry and buried her face into his shoulder, letting her tears flow into his jacket.

“Oh, I’m so sorry! It’s so horrible, I’m so-“

**11.**

“So, I’ll punch you.”

“Right. Wait, what? No!”

They were standing face-to-face, a pace between them. Neither of them were wearing their gear, dressed casually instead in t-shirts, jeans and sneakers. They had their weapons, though; Roy with his bow and arrows slung over his back, Dick with an escrima stick at either hip. He had a wide smile on his face, big, blue eyes bright and enthusiastic like a puppy as he looked at him. Roy, on the other hand, leaned back on his heels and stared back with a slight, apprehensive frown.

“Let me explain. I’ll punch you, like this-“ Dick stepped forward, bringing the two of them almost toe-to-toe. They were the same height _exactly_ – it was one of the first things Roy had noted when Oliver had introduced the two of them. Oliver, who was exactly ten inches taller than Roy, which annoyed him but made Oliver laugh and remind him that he was tall for his age, anyway, and to be grateful. Oliver was the same height as Batman – but Batman was bigger than him, Roy had pointed out the day after he had first met _him_ , to which Oliver had responded, _‘Muscles aren’t everything, Roy. Speed, aim, accuracy…’_ Roy had raised an eyebrow at him, and said, _‘Yeah, but one-on-one, no weapons – he could probably still beat you up, right?’_

But he and Dick were nearly identical, except for the obvious; his green eyes, red hair, freckled skin; Dick’s blue eyes, light, sandy-toned skin and dark hair. His hair was longer, and fluffier than Roy’s short and cropped style, which made him appear just slightly taller from afar – which was also annoying, admittedly, and he half-wondered if he could convince Dick to cut it. Then, they would be even. Equal.

Dick’s eyes locked onto his. He raised one hand, balled into a fist, and brought it to Roy’s cheek, moving in slow motion. “-like this. Right? And that will send you off-balance, like this-“ He touched the fingers of his other hand to the other side of Roy’s face, near his chin, using both to guide his head to one side. Roy obliged, but shifted his eyes as he moved, to keep them locked on Dick’s. Just in case.

“-and then I can disarm you, like this.” The hand that had been balled into a fist now moved over Roy’s shoulder, and he felt his bow dislodge from where it sat, slung across his back. His fingers twitched out of habit, but Dick’s other hand, resting on his shoulder now, kept him in place.

Finally, Dick stood back, and held the bow up – far too far down the lower limb, the weapon swaying awkwardly and threatening to topple out of his hand as he did so – a grin of pride now on his face. “See?” He held the bow back out to Roy, swinging it downwards in his hand. Roy’s muscles jumped, hands shooting out to grab it back from him before what seemed like the inevitable happened. “Now, we just do it but, like, for real. Fast.”

Slotting his bow back into its place, Roy looked at him, once more, sceptically. “Why am I letting you do this?”

“You’re not supposed to _let_ me. It’s practice. So you have to, you know, try and stop me. Fight back.”

Roy continued to stare at him.

“Come on!” Dick made a small jump backwards, back into his previous place. He raised his hands. “Just play along. It’s supposed to be quick, and hard to defend against, so you probably won’t even have time to try-“

“Okay, fine.” Roy almost mimicked him, taking a step back himself and raising his own hands into position. “Let’s go, then.”

It went like this:

Just as Dick had said, he closed the gap between them in one quick bound forward. His hand came at Roy’s face from the opposite direction they had practiced it in, colliding with an open-palmed blow against his cheekbone that was hardly enough to sting, but enough to rock him in one direction. His bow scraped against the shirt on his back at it was yanked, ungracefully, out of it’s holster, dragging Roy with it and sending him spinning in a one-eighty on his heel.

It all happened before he had time to think about defending himself – again, just as Dick had said. But when he stopped and finally managed to catch a second, instinct kicked in.

Dick was probably holding his bow up in all sorts of wrong ways, triumphant grin plastered on his face, just like before. Roy didn’t stop to look before he swung around again, throwing the momentum of his movement into the backhand that collided with Dick’s cheek.

The loud smack rang throughout the otherwise quiet room. He heard his bow hit the ground with a clatter and bolted to one side to grab it before it could slide any further across the unforgiving floor. When he had it in grasp again and looked up, he saw Dick on the ground, one hand propping his upper body up, the other holding his cheek.

_Oh._

The guilt hit his stomach like a rock.

“Um,” was all that came out of his mouth at first. Dick turned his head to one side to meet his eyes. His eyes looked somehow even bigger and wider and _bluer_ as he stared up at him from the ground. The skin of his cheek beneath his fingers, even as Roy watched, began to change at rapid pace to a hot, angry red color. “Uhm. I’m sorry, I didn’t…think…I just…”

Dick’s face split into an _even wider_ , tooth-filled grin.

“ _Damn_.” He breathed. The bridge of his nose and edges of his eyes crinkled as he let out a snort of laughter. “Br-I mean, Batman didn’t warn me about _that_.”

“Yeah, well…” Roy felt his own mouth curling into a smile, and then couldn’t stop himself from letting a giggle escape. “Maybe he should have…?”

For a few moments, all they could do was look at each other and laugh.

Roy held out a hand to Dick, who accepted it. As he hauled him to his feet, Roy noticed his cheek, still red, now dappled with a few flecks of cool purple bruising. _That_ would be fun for the two of them to explain.

Stepping back again, Dick brushed himself down. “Okay, let’s try again.” He raised his hands. “Except this time, _I_ get to punch _you_.”

“Hold my bow wrong again and we’ll see,” Roy responded with a sly, half-smile.

Dick’s laughter filled the air.

**15.**

“You’ve known me for three years and you _still_ can’t hold a bow right?”

Dick’s head snapped to one side to look over his shoulder at him. His eyebrows took a sharp dive downwards in an expression of mock offense, but the small crinkles around his eyes and twitching of the corners of his lips betrayed him.

“I know how to hold a bow. I know how to _shoot_ one.”

“Really.”

“ _Really._ ”

“Okay.” Roy folded his arms over his chest and leaned back against the wall. He nodded towards the target range in front of them. “Show me.”

Their eyes remained locked as Dick hesitated for a moment. Anyone else in the Tower – Kori, Donna, Vic, hell, Roy was pretty sure Gar wouldn’t even know where to _begin_ with a bow – would have laughed and conceded defeat to him without so much as an attempt. But, after the moment had passed, Dick turned back to the target range, re-loaded the arrow he had already in hand and re-aimed the bow.

As he pulled back the drawstring, his fingers fumbled the arrow ever so slightly. His wrist twisted at an angle almost imperceptible to anyone else; in the second before he released the arrow, the muscles running down his arm, foreign to this type of movement, let out a tiny shiver that reverberated down and through the body of the weapon.

There was a soft whirr followed by the thunk of sharpened plastic embedding itself in wood as the arrow flew free. Dick lowered the weapon as Roy stepped forward to peer over his shoulder, both assessing where the arrow had landed.

It was a good shot by casual judging standards, sitting firmly within the closest ring to bullseye. But they weren’t ‘casual’.

Roy let out a snort and began to laugh.

“Hey!” Dick spun around to face him. Roy was still laughing. “What? That’s good!”

“Sure, sure it is. If you’re just trying to hit _something_ and not, like, _aim_ or anything…”

“I was aiming! You couldn’t hit that _without_ aiming-“

Roy cut him off with a simple, outstretched, open palm. Dick hesitated again, for a split second, then relented and handed over the bow.

It was bigger and bulkier than his own bows, but his hands and fingers adjusted almost as soon as he had laid them on the weapon. After all, even his and Oliver’s second-hand cast-offs were better than what most civilians could buy in a store, and certainly better than the cracked and splintering bows made of cobbled-together firewood pieces he had crafted for himself as a kid on the reservation.

He allowed himself a single glance at the target ahead. Then he turned his head and shifted his eyes back to Dick, locking them on to his own. Without a word and without moving his eyes, he took an arrow, loaded it, drew it back and fired. Then did the same again, and again.

There was a second where the both of them waited for the other to pull his eyes away. Then Dick finally did, and Roy’s gaze followed.

All three arrows had landed clean on the bullseye. The space between them and the previous arrow, barely an inch, seemed like miles.

Roy looked back at Dick and grinned. Dick bit his lip, then, seeing Roy’s expression, scrunched his nose up at him and rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, well, whatever. _Some_ of us focus on more than _one_ skill…”

Roy nearly folded over as he let out a self-satisfied cackle. “ _That_ ’s no excuse, boy wonder. Besides-“ He threw out a playful fist, stopping it inches from Dick’s chin, and letting a _woosh_ sound escape through his teeth, akin to a fake, Hollywood-style sound effect. “-we both know I could totally beat you up.”

Dick retaliated, batting away Roy’s fist with a loose hand and appropriately over-the-top sound to match. Roy grinned at him; this time, he held out the bow.

“But seriously. You should learn how to hold a bow correctly. It’s embarrassing.”

Another eyeroll. “ _Jeez,_ sorry, Oliver.”

“If I were Oliver, you would already be holding this thing correctly. Trust me.” He pressed the bow into Dick’s hands. “Bruce on the other hand…has that old man ever even _touched_ a bow?”

“ _Yes_ , of course he has.” There was something funny – to Roy, at least, and probably not to anyone else – about the staunch persistence with which Dick maintained that Bruce knew everything. Which he probably did, but Roy liked to challenge Dick on it, anyway, just to see his reaction.

“Was he the one who taught you how to hold a bow?”

In response, Dick just gave him a look, to which Roy arched an eyebrow. “He _knows_ how to shoot a bow. Just like I do.” As if to give him an example, Dick adjusted his grip and drew back another arrow, aimed towards the target range.

Roy let out a snort. Dick’s arms dropped, and he spun towards him once more.

_“What?!”_

Roy didn’t respond. He only let out another laugh.

“It’s _fine_ ,” Dick insisted.

“Sure- sure- fine. For a beginner. Maybe not a _boy wonder_ ,” He teased through laughter, to which he received another scrunched up, belligerent expression from Dick.

“It’s fine.” he repeated.

“No, it’s- let me show you.”

Roy took a step closer to Dick, bringing them closer to one another. There were only mere inches between their noses, which had – to Roy’s gratitude – remained at the same level over the last few years (even if he had refused to cut his incessantly fluffy head of hair – Roy’s was growing, but he was still tempted to spike it to match). Dick hesitated for a second, then sighed, and resumed his previous position, aiming the bow. Roy glanced down and over him, giving him another, more intent eye-over, clicking his tongue once or twice as he did so.

“I already have Alfred mother-ing me without you doing it, too,” Dick muttered under his breath.

Roy let himself smile, but his face quickly grew serious again. He tapped two fingers to Dick’s wrist.

“Stiffen here.”

Dick obliged. Roy ran his fingers down his wrist to his elbow.

“And here.”

His fingers ran up and over his bicep – which was getting bigger every time they saw each other – to the spot where his shoulder met his trap muscles. Roy flattened out his hand and pressed his palm down.

“Loosen and lower.”

Dick frowned and glanced back over his shoulder at him. “You sure? That doesn’t make sens-“

“Um, _who_ ’s the expert here?” Roy raised his eyebrows at Dick. He could have sworn Dick was going to roll his eyes at him _again_ – that seemed to be his _thing_ at the moment – but he instead gave a miniscule shake of his head and looked forward once more. Roy felt his muscles and tendons shift, shoulder joint roll as he did what was asked of him.

“Now hold it.”

There was a small but audible pop as Dick’s shoulder moved into position. One side of Roy’s mouth quirked upwards and he let out a noisy exhale.

“Old man.”

“I’m six months younger than you. _Old man._ ”

He shuffled his feet in place to bring himself further behind Dick, but closer in towards him, their two bodies very nearly touching now. He placed his other hand on Dick’s other shoulder and gave both a gentle push and pull.

“Move outwards, like this…now stop. And hold it.”

He moved one hand and pressed it to the middle of Dick’s back, right where his spine laid between his shoulder blades. Dick did as he was told, freezing in place.

Finally, Roy’s hands travelled down Dick’s sides, over his ribcage and waist, to his hips. He placed his fingers on either hip, feeling the angular but smooth bones beneath the fabric of his jeans, then, as he had before, gave them a gentle tug to and angled them into position.

“And outwards…like this…”

Roy looked up and caught Dick looking over his shoulder at him again. This time, he wasn’t scrunching his nose up at him or rolling his eyes – his face, instead, was oddly still, but there was a strange, _new_ look in his eyes. Roy couldn’t figure out what it was in that moment, but he felt a hot blush creep up from his neck to his cheeks.

“Shoot.”

Dick blinked at him, neither moving nor responding for a second. “What?”

“Shoot. The, um, arrow.” He took his hands off Dick’s hips and stood back.

“Oh…yeah, right.” Dick nodded, eyes turning away from Roy and back to the target range.

A single arrow flew off. It landed only fractions of an inch from the bullseye and where the three from earlier still sat, firmly embedded in the wood – but Roy still had to stop himself from physically cringing when his eye caught the miniscule shake of Dick’s hands just before the projectile took flight.

Dick lowered the bow, and the two of them, once again, peered at the target ahead of them to assess the shot.

“Not bad.” Roy hummed. “But you’re no natural. Clearly.”

Dick looked at him, then went to take another shot. In the mere minute between the previous shot and the one that followed it, he had – somehow – managed to twist himself out of the position Roy had with such care put him in and back into whatever ‘form’ it was he had initially.

The arrow landed significantly farther from the bullseye than the last, and almost farther than the very first had.

Roy let out a loud snort.

“ _Clearly._ ”

With an exasperated sigh, Dick turned on his heel and threw the bow in Roy’s direction, sending him scrambling to catch it, yelping out a rebuke at Dick for his carelessness as he did so.

**17.**

If you asked Roy what he liked about Donna Troy, he would lay it out like this:

He liked her hair – dark, thick, and long, a perfect frame for her face. He liked her eyes, which were maybe a bit too small for her face but glittered blue and silver in even the slightest of light, sapphires in silver casing. He liked her skin, which was smooth and almost flawless, not unlike the surfaces of the sculptures in the art gallery his school made him go to last semester, made of a fawn tone that darkened in the summer, even if all they spent their time doing was running after B-tier criminals in the back alleyways of the city. It never burned like his did, or turned into a mottled, freckly mess from afar. He liked that she was smart and capable – she could even shoot a bow - and that he didn’t feel like he had to protect her or worry about her all the time.

He didn’t like when she took things too seriously or didn’t understand his jokes. He didn’t like that when she wore certain shoes, or stood at a certain angle, she looked taller than him, and that sometimes, she was very obviously stronger and smarter than him. Themysciran genes. He didn’t like when she got on her soapbox about peace, and love, and justice and all that crap. He got it – he was a hero, after all, it was in his nature – he didn’t need to hear her go on about it all the time. He didn’t like when she disappeared with Diana to Themyscira, or some United Nations peace rally, or a book launch or dignitaries’ speech or something and went days, sometimes weeks without seeing him or contacting him. He didn’t like when it felt like she thought he was better than him and that there was nothing he could say about it – she was a princess descended from literal Gods, after all, while he was just an orphan twice-over who got lucky enough to catch the attention of some millionaire with an archery fetish.

He said as much to Dick when he asked. They were playing some stupid video game; one of those one-on-one fighters with a million different characters and overly convoluted button combinations. Dick refused to play shoot-‘em-ups with Roy anymore – apparently he had some sort of _unfair advantage_ \- so they were stuck with this. Or Kori’s cutesy-kawaii farming game, but Roy didn’t even know where to begin with _that_.

Kori. All Dick talked about these days was Kori. No matter what they were doing, what they started with, it all came back to Kori. Every morning, while he was shoving toast into his half-asleep face, the two of them would be giggling and dancing around each other in the kitchen. He and Dick never went to the gym together anymore – he always went with Kori, and the one time Roy made the obvious joke about _that_ , Dick had looked at him with such indignant, moral shock, like he was some prude straight out of church, that Roy had caught on right then and there that any jokes about the two of them were off limits. When they went out on patrol together, all Dick seemed to do was gush about her – where they went for their last date (that ramen place on the waterfront), where they were going for their next one (the zoo), what her favorite foods were (sugar, spice, and everything nice), what her favorite films were (romances and comedies and the two blended together), what her favorite things to do were (play with the baby animals at the shelter, flip through _Vogue_ , visit the botanical gardens). When he got bored and wandered off to Dick’s room to hang out, like he had been doing since he was fourteen, ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the time, she was there already.

At first, he put up with it. Brushed it off and figured that Dick would go back to normal soon enough. It was – what did they call it? – the honeymoon period. But they had been dating for _months_ now and it was still the same; every morning, every night, all day long, Kori, Kori, Kori. It lit a fire in Roy’s gut, one that seemed to smoulder away every waking minute and flare up whenever he saw them together. It pissed him off, and _not_ because his own girlfriend never felt compelled to spend as much time with him (or vice versa). It was unhealthy, it wasn’t _normal_. Dick was supposed to have a life outside of his girlfriend; he had other things he needed to pay attention to, his work, his school, his family, his friends.

“Dammit! You killed me.” Roy stomped one of the feet he had propped on the table in front of them. The array of soda cans, potato chip wrappers and video game cases that had collected atop it rattled and crackled with the jolt of the furniture. Dick said nothing in response, simply loading the character selection screen up again while sprinkling another handful of dry cereal into his mouth. Roy had never understood the appeal.

“Sounds like a lot of stuff you _don’t_ like about her,” He commented through his mouthful. Roy frowned.

 _Just because I don’t_ obsess _over her like you do with Kori_ …

It was how he wanted to respond, but instead, he stabbed a finger down onto a button on his controller and said,

“No. I like plenty of stuff about her. I just…don’t like some other stuff, as well. Nobody’s perfect.”

Dick turned his head to look across the couch at him. He hadn’t chosen his character yet, so the screen remained where it was, cursor hovering over some vaguely Japanese-looking character in colourful and skimpy dress. Roy didn’t look back, eyes remaining fixed on the otherwise unchanging television screen. _If you say anything about her-_

“I mean, there’s not that much I don’t like about Kori.” Roy’s jaw clenched, and he felt that acid burning in his stomach again.

“Can you hurry up and choose your character?”

“Do you feel like that about everyone?” Dick, at last, clicked the button and the screen rolled into the usual introductory animations. The character he had chosen wasn’t one of his usual choices, always the first sign that he was more interested in the conversation they were having than the game.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I mean…do you dislike stuff about _everyone_ you know?”

“Well…yeah, I guess. Mostly. Doesn’t everyone?”

 _Go!_ There was a period of silence as the two of them proceeded to mash the various buttons with a frantic pace usually only exceeded by them in the heat of (real-life) battle. Due to the difference in characters, Roy’s on-screen health bar didn’t deplete quite as rapidly as it usually did, but Dick – who was represented this time by some sort of anthropomorphic tree – still took the upper hand.

“Hmm. I don’t know.” Roy won the round with a fluke upper-cut-roundhouse-kick combo. He let out a loud _‘Hah!’_ in victory.

Instead of putting on his usual pout that he did when Roy got his rare wins, Dick took the break in gameplay as an opportunity to peer at him intently once again. “What do you dislike about me?”

“What?” Roy, for the first time, looked back at Dick. His expression was genuine, mouth serious. “Um, I don’t know…”

He had never thought about it when it came to Dick, if he were to be honest.

There were things he didn’t _get_ about Dick, sure, but he didn’t _dislike_ them. He didn’t understand how Dick stayed up so late all the time, but it was fine, because it meant that on the nights he couldn’t sleep because Oliver had chewed him out over something innocuous or Donna wasn’t picking up his calls again or _whatever_ , Roy could just go to his room and laze about on his bed while Dick did whatever-the-hell-it-was-he-did-all-night until he _did_ fall asleep. Dick was better at climbing than him, and flips, and, Roy would begrudgingly admit to only himself, _fighting_ , but his arms still shook all over the place when he tried to fire a bow no matter how much advice Roy gave him. Plus, Roy could out-shoot him in both aim and speed with anything, even Dick’s own specially designed bat-wing-things, as they had found out when Dick challenged him one day. Roy was pretty sure Dick hadn’t admitted _that_ one to anyone, not even Bruce.

Dick was stronger than he was, but Roy was faster. Dick had (slightly) more defined muscles, but Roy was, at last, taller than him, thanks to the two inches he had gained in the last year. When Roy got fired up and was just _itching_ to shoot first, ask questions later, Dick held him back and told him to _‘Think. Idiot’_. When Dick got his brain all caught up in the various criss-crossing strings and wires of all of his strategies and theories – seriously, the guy’s brain had to look like Pan’s Labyrinth - Roy pulled him out of it, even with a single look and, _‘Well, why don’t you just_ do it _then?_ ’ No matter how angry or scared or upset they got with the world or with each other, or how many stupid mistakes they made, they didn’t need to preach or lecture about heroics or maturity or pride because they knew the other _got it_. It was fine. They balanced each other out.

And, yeah, he guessed he didn’t mind how Dick looked, either. But that was a given – he was the most attractive person Roy knew; that _any_ of them knew. Everyone commented on it, from his hair – which he still kept long and fluffy, just touching his collar now – to his eyes, his skin, his smile, his body…so it wasn’t just him.

He said none of this aloud, of course, but Dick must have seen his brain working behind his eyes. Either that or he had finally figured out how to read Roy’s mind like he’d been promising he would one day since they were twelve.

“Come on, there has to be _something_ you don’t like about me.”

Roy blinked at him. He could hear the music and incessant, over-the-top narrator telling them to return to the match, but neither of them gave it much attention. “That’s different,” was the first answer that came to his tongue. “You’re my best friend.”

“Oh? So…best friends have to like _everything_ about each other?” Dick looked back at the game and proceeded to begin annihilating Roy’s character with the intricate combos he was best at. Roy fumbled to get his brain back into the game and save himself.

“No,” he said as he attempted to execute rapid-fire blocking manoeuvres, but inadvertently pressed the right button instead of the left and _why was this so goddamn complicated-_ “I mean, not always. But, like, most of the time.”

“Hmmm.” Dick’s thumbs flew over the surface of the controller as he completed a quadruple-pop-up-suplex-backbreaker, according to the commentator. Whatever the hell _that_ was; Roy’s eyes couldn’t keep up. All he knew was that his health depleted completely, and he kicked the table again. “Shouldn’t your girlfriend be the same, then?”

“What?”

“Shouldn’t your girlfriend be your best friend? Ideally.”

Roy let out a frustrated sigh. “You can have friends _outside_ of your girlfriend, you know.”

Dick’s eyebrows furrowed downwards, the skin between his eyebrows crinkling. “Yeah, but…your girlfriend should be one of those, right? Or even better. I mean, it’s like, with Kori – she’s my best friend, and I love everyth-“

“Fuck, we _get it_ , Dick, you _love_ Kori,” Roy had snarled out the response before he even realized it.

The third and final round loaded on the screen, the music kicking up again, but neither of them touched their controllers.

“Excuse me?”

“We fucking _get it_. You love Kori. It’s all you fucking go on and on and on about, and we’re sick of it.” The words tumbled out of Roy’s mouth, one after the other, as if they had been queued up, waiting, desperate to come out.

“ _We’re_ sick of it? Or _you’re_ sick of it?” For some reason, Dick’s questioning seemed to stab at him more than expected; as if it were just _his_ problem, and not-

“Everyone! Everyone is! But yeah, I _am_ fucking sick of it. In fact-“ Roy pushed his controller to one side and straightened up, stabbing a finger in Dick’s direction. “- you want to know what I dislike about you? _That_.”

“What? That I love my girlfriend?” Roy could see Dick’s previous expression – eyebrows raised, eyes widened slightly – hardening around the eyes, turning downwards into a frown.

“That you-“ _That isn’t what I meant_. Words escaped Roy for a moment. “-that you can’t have a _life_ outside of loving her. You’re obsessed!”

“Well, I’m _sorry_ for _loving_ my _girlfriend-_ “

“Don’t be an idiot,” Roy snapped. He tossed his previously-abandoned controller towards the other end of the couch, in Dick’s direction, before getting up. “I’m done.”

“ _I’m_ being ridiculous? Look, Roy, I get that you don’t _get_ it because you’re not like that with your girlfriend-“

“Ex-girlfriend,” he corrected.

“What?” Roy could see Dick’s line of thought stop in its tracks. “You broke up? When did you-“

 _Right now. She doesn’t know yet._ “I don’t know. Like, a week ago.”

“What? You didn’t tell me?”

Roy scoffed under his breath as he turned to walk away. “As if you would notice.”

“Roy. Roy! Hey-“ He could hear Dick stand up behind hm, but he didn’t hesitate as he walked away.

“No. I’m done.”

He had a phone call to make. One that should have been hard but wasn’t. Because, Roy supposed, if the conversation between Dick and him had achieved anything – besides pissing them both off – it had shown him one thing.

There were a lot of things he liked about Donna Troy. A lot of things he didn’t like. But there was nothing he _loved_ about her.

**19.**

The girl had fallen asleep on his shoulder, cheek pressed into the damp, tear-soaked patch she had made on the sleeve of his jacket. The party had quieted somewhat, thumping music and voices straining to be heard over it dying down to a low, background hum punctuated by hushed murmurs. The writhing and twisting bodies had at some point morphed into passed-out figures, slumped in corners or stretched out on the floor. A small group huddled around a couch, heads together, faces still masked by the dim lighting, no longer flickering as they had been before but still hanging low over them all.

Roy could feel his own eyes blurring over, eyelids heavy, threatening to pull themselves down over him. He could join the group, he supposed, even if he was certain – without getting so much as a glance at their faces - he didn’t know a single soul. They would talk about vapid and unimportant things – cars, shoes, getting drunk, getting high, buying drugs, fucking girls, how no one in their lives understood or respected them even though none of them had ever done anything noteworthy in their lives to be deserving of deeper understanding or respect. A part of Roy hated it if he listened too hard, but the other part of him – the part that dragged him to parties like this in the first place – found comfort in it. Meaningless background noise, where there was no imminent death or danger nor any pressure on him to go about saving anyone from it. Oliver – or had it been Bruce, speaking to him through Dick? – had once told him that a man was judged by the company he kept. The thought almost made him smile with a bitter sense of humor right then and there. He wondered what Oliver, Bruce, Dick, Kori, Donna - all of them - would think of his friends now?

He could go home. Not like there would be anyone there. Oliver was always busy – jetting around the world with the League, fighting off intergalactic threats with Green Lanterns, doing whatever else it was that they did and decided Roy was either too young, too irresponsible or too stupid to be privy to. Hooking up with Dinah, too, which he seemed to think he had successfully managed to keep a secret, but the two of them were about as inconspicuous with romance as they were in combat, emerald green arrows and ear-piercing screeches. And if Roy knew, then the rest of the League knew. And if the rest of the League knew, then Batman _definitely_ knew, and it would forever be sealed in those weird little files he kept on everyone. Roy had tried to get Dick to find him his, once; Dick had told him he’d prefer to live to see twenty, at least.

Dick, who these days was always sniffing out trouble all over Gotham or running off on whatever errand Bruce decided to send him on that evening. He and Kori had broken up a few months ago, the pain of which had apparently sent Kori on some sort of soul-searching mission to Tamaran. Not that either of them had told _him_ – he had heard it from Oliver, who heard it from Dinah, who heard it from a Lantern. 

The girl shifted on his shoulder. He felt the patch on his shoulder, exposed to the air for a brief moment, grow cool against his skin.

Or he could sleep. When he was high, he never dreamed. Not of fighting and explosions, or pain and injury. Not of his family – what was left of it – or his friends – what were left of them. Nothing. Just black, as empty as the conversations that happened around him in these places with these people.

The girl had said something to him. What had it been? He hadn’t been paying all that much attention or been able to manage focusing his brain on her, even when he could understand her blubbering words between the sniffs and the sobs.

_“I just can’t move on. Like…my life revolved around him, and then once he...left, I just…stopped. I’m stuck.”_

Roy let his eyes close, and his mind melt away into the black.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading! kudos/comments are always appreciated. 
> 
> thanks again. :)


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